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Trouble is, GW have literally hundreds of thousands of customers. Somebody somewhere is going to get peeved, there is literally nowt they can do about it!

Apoc is a good example. Fundamentally, it's only ever going to be an occasion expansion. Planetstrike likewise, not every game you'll want to play will be Planetstrike. Planetstrike to me offers very welcome variety, and some gorgeous terrain pieces, whilst also making it feasible to buy more Heavy Support/Elites than I can normally field! Cities of Death, ditto. If anything, I don't think they made enough of Battle Missions, an awesome expansion I can use more often than the other three, arguably put together! Anything that offers variety is good to me. And it's about your level of personal investment in your hobby. Some just want easy pick up games, which is great if that's your thing. Me, I love a good campaign, and can make good use of the above expansions to add depth and variety. The very nature of these expansions mean they aren't for everyone, or even everytime, but for the sake of the price of the book, I get more out my army, which to me is a good thing!

Elmodiddly wrote:Some of you know me by now, I try to sit on the straight thinking fence. I do fall off occasionally.

I don’t agree with some of the comments about GW being accused of raking in huge profits and keeping things expensive to shaft us, the customer.

GW last year made £7.5 million. Which, for a global company, is very poor by anyone’s standard.

It's very poor because that figure is totally incorrect. According to their 2009 End of Year reports they posted:

Revenue £125.7m,(a huge increase over their 2008 report of £110.3m)

So yes, GW does price gouge, and they make enormous markup profits on their products.

Sometimes I wish you could get a little more attention in GW when you are actually purchasing something. I dont hang out at the GW. Personally i think its full of a bunch of nerdy young kids and old creepy men most of the time. When ever i go into GW i buy a battle force or a few boxes and leave.

1. It makes me mad they are too busy demoing a game to some little kids while i have questions and am going to drop $100-200 a visit.

2.It really really makes me upset when i come in and buy a fair amount of stuff, usually 3-5 boxes and then they try to up sell you. So you guys are getting a hundred plus from me today and you are trying to push more sales on me? No thanks i dont need primer... or a brush.. or any paints.

hemingway wrote:It's very poor because that figure is totally incorrect. According to their 2009 End of Year reports they posted:

Wow, you can fail, and then you can FAIL.

If you're going to link something, take three seconds to read it first, and preferably farther than the first line of the page.

hemingway wrote:It's very poor because that figure is totally incorrect. According to their 2009 End of Year reports they posted:

Revenue £125.7m,(a huge increase over their 2008 report of £110.3m)

Revenue is all monies coming in. Afer monies going out, PROFIT is 7.5M, which again (consideirng that 1.7M is royalties) - is not so good.

hemingway wrote:

Elmodiddly wrote:Some of you know me by now, I try to sit on the straight thinking fence. I do fall off occasionally.

I don’t agree with some of the comments about GW being accused of raking in huge profits and keeping things expensive to shaft us, the customer.

GW last year made £7.5 million. Which, for a global company, is very poor by anyone’s standard.

It's very poor because that figure is totally incorrect. According to their 2009 End of Year reports they posted:

Revenue £125.7m,(a huge increase over their 2008 report of £110.3m)

So yes, GW does price gouge, and they make enormous markup profits on their products.

Epic fail me old mukka. £7.5 million profit. Hardly a large markup is it?

kaidsin wrote:Sometimes I wish you could get a little more attention in GW when you are actually purchasing something. I dont hang out at the GW. Personally i think its full of a bunch of nerdy young kids and old creepy men most of the time. When ever i go into GW i buy a battle force or a few boxes and leave.

1. It makes me mad they are too busy demoing a game to some little kids while i have questions and am going to drop $100-200 a visit.

2.It really really makes me upset when i come in and buy a fair amount of stuff, usually 3-5 boxes and then they try to up sell you. So you guys are getting a hundred plus from me today and you are trying to push more sales on me? No thanks i dont need primer... or a brush.. or any paints.

That is an employees job. Being an experienced Hobbyist, you know what you want. Intro Gaming is critical to the Hobby. That is how we get new blood into the Hobby, and sort out future opponents for yourself. Now, if they totally ignore you then fair enough, it's part of their job to at least acknowledge everyone who enters the store, ranging from a friendly hello, to striking up a conversation about your Hobby.

But then you go on to say they shouldn't try to upsell you. Honestly, how many times have you made your purchases, got home and found you are out of glue? Or undercoat? Or the brush you need to use didn't get a proper cleaning and could do with replacing? It's courtesy. You are perfectly entitled to say no to such things. Me, I tend to lose track of what glue is where, and how much of each I have, so when buying plastic, I could do with Poly Cement, and metal, Superglue. Even if I get home and find I didn't need it, it remains a material I will use in the future.

And as for the amount, so what? The kid being intro'd could be about to start out in the Hobby. That means a starter game, paints, clippers, glues, brushes, further models, codecies etc. Do you really think that your needs outweigh a total NooB, someone who doesn't know a Defiler from a Dark Elf? It seems on one hand, you are demanding special attention, and then decrying a good staff members attempts to make sure you have everything necessary to assemble and paint your purchases. Which is it to be? You can essentially have one or the other, or realise that you personally (and this does indeed go for all us) are NOT the be all and end all when it comes to a store. You have to understand that new blood is indeed everything. They need the most help, us hoary old hands need it less so.

During these threads there is a common theme; lots and lots of complaining about things that are not really issues.

There are people who feel that they are under pressure when browsing, people who feel as if they're pushed into buying when the salesperson is asking if they need supplies, you still have the choice of two answers to give.
There are people who think they are being ignored when, in all reality, you're an adult and can ask for help when required but at the same time there are those who feel they are being pestered when the sales person asks if they can help.

No matter which way round it goes;

1. give the customer time to make their own damned mind up = being ignored
2. ask the customer if they need help = being pushy
3. ask the customer if they need anything else (in their own experience people do forget stuff and are back 10 minutes later) = being pushy

They, quite simply, cannot win! No matter what they do, they are wrong.

Look at the threads; What is the best experience at your local GW or FLGS and What's the worst experience. To date 3 pages of best experience but a whopping 18 pages of worst! It isn't because they are so bad (if they were they would be bankrupt) but rather the thing we do best is moaning and nothing spread better than a bit of gossip.

You never, ever, hear of someone saying "and I went in the store and the chap said "hello can I help you?", it was really nice service" instead you're more likely to say "and this arse pestered me to buy stuff"

I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "Do you need paint? Primer?" and I had actually forgotten to pick it up.

It's all part of going to a store, isn't it? I think a lot of the problem is that some people might not get out much, or have some kind of social anxiety that makes them not want to tell the store employees "No Thank You."

+1 Brother, +1.

Monster Rain wrote:I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "Do you need paint? Primer?" and I had actually forgotten to pick it up.

It's all part of going to a store, isn't it? I think a lot of the problem is that some people might not get out much, or have some kind of social anxiety that makes them not want to tell the store employees "No Thank You."

Was it this board that we had someone complaining about the 'hello Nazis' and that if someone was going to try and talk to him they'd better be: A: Attractive, B: Intelligent, or C: Important or D: Interesting or else he'd be pissed at them wasting his time (apparently, being a store employee automatically eliminated you from all of those)?

Bookwrack wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I can't tell you how many times I've been asked "Do you need paint? Primer?" and I had actually forgotten to pick it up.

It's all part of going to a store, isn't it? I think a lot of the problem is that some people might not get out much, or have some kind of social anxiety that makes them not want to tell the store employees "No Thank You."

Was it this board that we had someone complaining about the 'hello Nazis' and that if someone was going to try and talk to him they'd better be: A: Attractive, B: Intelligent, or C: Important or D: Interesting or else he'd be pissed at them wasting his time (apparently, being a store employee automatically eliminated you from all of those)?

That could have been any neckbeard on any wargaming site. Needle in a haystack, bro.

Hey, pricks are everywhere. You have to remember, the poor sods being derided are just doing their job. Don't like it, don't go in there. Simple as.

I'm sure any visitor to a GW outlet has been serenaded by (or overheard) the following speech:

Customer enters
1. Hi, welcome to Games Workshop... can I help you find anything today?
2. Are you familiar with our two main game products?
if yes
3. Oh, so what army do you play?
4. Have you seen **insert new release** for **army**. or Are you running **insert random model here**
5. Free-form follow up as to why that is good - Sometimes, unfortunately, the staffer will be a bit too forceful, ignoring the customer's view or in some cases, straight out contradicting the customer's stated play style or tactical choices.
if no
3. Well, our two main products are Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. They're table top minature games sort of like CHESS or RISK (ed. I find this hillarious, because in reality, Fantasy and 40k are nothing like CHESS or RISK)
if customer is still in store and didn't answer with a "Oh, that's nice, thanks" prior to exiting...
4. Have you seen our starter kits? They contain all the miniatures you see here... you assemble and paint them yourself...
etc. etc. etc.

While there is nothing wrong with the content of this predetermined speech, as with all things preset, it is better used as a guideline, I think adhering too closely to any fixed method is problematic... especially when some staffers zone out the customer's response and moves onto the next part of the company spiel. You can usually spot the newness of a staffer by how closely they adhere to this formula.

I think if some people got out more they'd realize that most stores have employees that interact with you and try to sell you things.

It's not restricted to GW. Hell, the poor guy is probably just happy to have someone in the store judging by their profits in the link above!

Monster Rain wrote:I think if some people got out more they'd realize that most stores have employees that interact with you and try to sell you things.

It's not restricted to GW. Hell, the poor guy is probably just happy to have someone in the store judging by their profits in the link above!

Heh - its not that they try and sell you things... its that they act like robots trying to sell you things. The horrible part is that it doesn't matter which GW I go to... I've been to ones in a half dozen different cities across Canada and the US, and the speech is pretty much the same!

-edit- I've noticed this varies with the staffer's seniority... the longer serving staffers are more likely to be able of conversation independent of "the speech". This is offset by the fact that GW goes through staffers like crazy. Maybe now that they're transitioning to 1 man stores, there will be better staff retention and this robo-speech will be a thing of the past!

Elmodiddly wrote:

Epic fail me old mukka.

yep. i won't be running my mouth about finance again any time soon. suffice it to say i have enough win in my life to not let an internet fail take the wind out of my sails =D

AAAAAAAAAA fudge it. I cant be bothered to read all this. Just go to ebay or ebid or the friggin carboot. Got a nice complet set of heroquest at the carboot for a couple of squid. AND smack cakes has a point about white dwarf being only like a fiver but being just as long as a fething codex

I have to say... I haven't had any problem with guys in the store trying to a hard sell.

Asking me if I need help, If I'm okay for primer, and telling me about what they have in store... I just call that good service.

People who do claim they have had a 'hard sell' put on them in GW... Just how hard was it really? Was it as bad as those clipboard guys on the street, who want you to set up a direct debit to a charity? The ones who you practically have to beat to get them to back off...

I don't think I've ever had any sales pitch in GW that a couple of polite 'no thank you's wouldn't put a stop to.

Sorry bout the little outburst of pseudo-swearing there.

i went to a GW at state college and the first thing i asked the red shirt was if he liked Wu-Tang Clan. he said he didnt, and it was downhill from there.

@Mr Mystery
Bah, i dont really have that problem of my gule being gone or such, plus i dont but that stuff from there. Minis only. But i do get their number one concern is new players, but its usally stupid events and i get almost no recognition; even when i have questions i may have to pry them from there games.

That means a starter game, paints, clippers, glues, brushes, further models, codecies etc.

Do people really buy these things from GW? so over priced compared to other hobby stores. Do people pay for the books? I always wondered how many people have since you can easily torrent all of the 5th edition stuff. As well as all supplements as battle missions n such.

kaidsin wrote:@Mr Mystery
Bah, i dont really have that problem of my gule being gone or such, plus i dont but that stuff from there. Minis only. But i do get their number one concern is new players, but its usally stupid events and i get almost no recognition; even when i have questions i may have to pry them from there games.

That means a starter game, paints, clippers, glues, brushes, further models, codecies etc.

Do people really buy these things from GW? so over priced compared to other hobby stores. Do people pay for the books? I always wondered how many people have since you can easily torrent all of the 5th edition stuff. As well as all supplements as battle missions n such.

Yeah, those of us who aren't thieves do buy the books.

Kirasu wrote:Does Nostradamus know when GW will get their own nascar car?

That made me chuckle.

hemingway wrote:

Elmodiddly wrote:

Epic fail me old mukka.

yep. i won't be running my mouth about finance again any time soon. suffice it to say i have enough win in my life to not let an internet fail take the wind out of my sails =D

Lol, nice recovery, the judges award ten points across the board.

hemingway wrote:yep. i won't be running my mouth about finance again any time soon. suffice it to say i have enough win in my life to not let an internet fail take the wind out of my sails =D

Fair enough.

@Keezus, you've just proved the point, no matter what they do, you'll find fault. If you say "Yes" they then ask if you know X is out or Y has changed. Not everyone buys White Dwarf or goes onto GW t'interweb. If you say "No" you deride them for making easy comparisons that noobs, such as what you have just inferred you are by saying "No", would understand.

You are being unfair, there is no issue, only what you consciously choose to perceive and then taking umbridge. They do stick to a formula, only because it works worldwide, in any shop, in any situation.

I went into a bike shop at the start of the summer, looking for a new bike. The chap said have you got a bike at the moment "Yes a ZZR110", chap instantly knows that I ride and suspects what sort of thing I am looking for. He then asks what sort I am looking for, I tell him, he then tells me what equivalents he has and what new bikes are there which I might not be aware of. Just like in your scenario. It is his job.
If I were to say "no", he would ask if I have a licence and then advise from there what bikes are learner legal or restricted BHP. Just like in your scenario because it is his job.

Like I said; damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Iv'e had the same experience at my old GW store here in AZ. It's no longer there. They was a guy who wanted to get into 40k. The employee kept telling him "You should buy the Battle for Macragge set!" guy said "I don't want those guys, I want these guys" *he points to the IG section.* *the employee pulls the IG battleforce out.* "You to get this and this" *pulls out the IG codex* guy says "but i dont want that much and dont have that much money, i only want something small to start with, and not the books now. I only want to build them" employee goes quiet with a dumb look on his face like he has never heard that line before.

It was almost hard to ignore the conversation because the store was small and employee was talking really loud. Then the employee walks away and whispers to his fellow employee friends while he points at the guy. The employees were such pricks. The prices were expensive all the way up to the normal retail price with pushy service. No wonder it closed down. At the most 4 people went just to look around. The employees were pricks and would walk up to the looking person and say it a pushy loud mouthed a$$h*le kinda way. "CAN I HELP YOU WITH ANY THING??" customer stayed quiet and slowly walks out of store. There was only one employee there who seemed to enjoyed that was working at a GW store and was so always eager to help. he now work at a non-gw store. It seems that only the non-gw have great customer service and dont mind it you just come to look around.

sorry too many mistakes in my writing. time for bed for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PZxuv6lO7Y

studderingdave wrote:i went to a GW at state college and the first thing i asked the red shirt was if he liked Wu-Tang Clan. he said he didnt, and it was downhill from there.

What the feth is Wu-Tang Clan?

kaidsin wrote:@Mr Mystery
Bah, i dont really have that problem of my gule being gone or such, plus i dont but that stuff from there. Minis only. But i do get their number one concern is new players, but its usally stupid events and i get almost no recognition; even when i have questions i may have to pry them from there games.

That means a starter game, paints, clippers, glues, brushes, further models, codecies etc.

Do people really buy these things from GW? so over priced compared to other hobby stores. Do people pay for the books? I always wondered how many people have since you can easily torrent all of the 5th edition stuff. As well as all supplements as battle missions n such.

If the Staffer isn't peeling off from the game to help you, that is indeed poor customer service. Sometimes it is no doubt hard. They might be helping someone work out a complicated turn, or showing them how their new unit works.

The vast majority of their customers do indeed buy the branded products, mainly due to the sheer convenience. If you can get it cheaper elsewhere, then no harm done. But equally, no harm done in asking if you need some. Whether you are buying it from them or not, a memory jog like that will ensure you pick some up one way or the other.

And as for 'torrenting' the books...see what Monster Rain wrote. Not everyone in this life demands something for nothing you know.

terribletrygon wrote:What the feth is Wu-Tang Clan?

Waaait....., Seriously?